


Dumbledore, In Four Perspectives

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 16:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: In three people's words, and his own.





	Dumbledore, In Four Perspectives

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for a writing exercise: a character described by someone who meets them under strange circumstances, by someone who's known them all their life, by someone who hates them, and in their own words.  
Unbetaed, self-indulgent.

1

“Oh, come now, dear, it’s a nice day. You have to get out sometime. Start fresh.”

Gellert huffs, but Auntie Bathilda is pushing him out the door—literally, with her hand between his shoulder blades—and she’s unexpectedly strong. So he walks.

“Hello, Ariana. Is your brother in? I have someone he might like to meet.”

The little girl who answers the door darts off, beaming. She returns within moments, a tall figure striding purposefully behind her.

He’s got ink smudged on the tip of his long nose, Gellert notices. Bags under brilliant blue eyes. Burgundy hair down to his shoulders which is rather unkempt.

“Hello,” he says, and his voice is somewhat phlegmy. “Who are you?” He clasps slender-fingered hands in front of him, his stance far from relaxed.

“Why, Albus, this is my nephew. I thought you two might have a lot in common.” Auntie Bathilda winks.

Gellert looks at him. He looks back, skeptical. “We’ll see about that,” he says.

“I suppose we will,” Gellert replies. “I’m stuck here for the next few months.”

“Ah.” Albus smiles at this. “So am I.”

2

Aberforth tries to think of his brother as little as possible, even—and especially—when he drops by the pub for a drink or a chat or to oh so pleasantly beg for some help with an Order mission or information or what have you. And Ab’s pretty successful at it, if he does say so himself. Albus enters, Ab grunts in response to whatever unimportant, pretty-sounding, fluffy nonsense he’s come to spout off, and Albus leaves with those ridiculous robes of his all a-flutter.

Absurd.

But sometimes Ab can’t help noticing the way he leans his chin on his palm, or twiddles his thumbs out of habit, or the way he sometimes runs a finger down the bridge of his crooked nose just to remind Ab of its shape. Which is hard to forget, really. It’s his feature of pride, since he outlines it in ink on the chocolate frog cards he occasionally drops on the bar.

It’s been years. Why is he so damned petty?

Aberforth glowers at him where he sits tonight, stooped and weary. “What’s eating you?”

“Oh, this and that.”

Right. Never going to give a straight answer. Ab turns away to wipe a dirty glass with a dirtier rag. The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable.

3

“Albus Dumbledore,” Cornelius says into the fireplace and feels the signature disconcerting spinning of Floo-calling.

“Ah, Cornelius! I’ve been expecting you for hours.” Dumbledore kneels with surprising agility on the hearthrug, his silver beard thrown over one shoulder, his eyes twinkling condescendingly over the tops of his spectacles.

_Expecting me_, Cornelius thinks sourly. “Thank you for taking my call,” he says aloud. “I just have a few questions.” He’s only just been elected Minister, and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself at any cost.

Their relationship is annoying to Cornelius. He hates Dumbledore, hates that he knows so much and won’t bother to run for Minister and do an _honest_ politician’s work, hates that he, Cornelius, needs him at all.

And so, of course, when the Potter boy starts going on about You-Know-Who returning after that humiliation of a Tournament, Cornelius has his chance to put Dumbledore in the place he seems to want. Quite satisfying, if you ask him.

4

He’s done the best he could, Albus wants to say. (To Harry? To Tom? To his poor dead sister? To Gellert? To Aberforth? Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.)

He’s done the best he could, kept Muggle-borns and werewolves from being tossed out of the Wizarding world entirely. Kept himself away from temptation, done what he had to in order to keep the world safe from his mistakes.

Harry’s hunched in the chair in front of his desk, head buried in his hands. He isn’t crying, and Albus cannot understand how. Losing one so dear… How does he not weep?

(_My fault_, he thinks, unwillingly. _I could have done more for him…_)

Tom was like that, in his way. Harder than Harry. Colder. An iceberg in the middle of a slow-moving stream, an obstruction, a danger to the wary and unwary alike. (His fault, surely.)

“You may also be wondering why I did not make you prefect,” Albus says at last, and ah, he may weep enough for both of them, once Harry leaves. “I…I thought you had quite enough to be getting on with.”

Harry doesn’t reply beyond a silent nod, and Albus feels damned by his silence. (He could have done better by so many.)


End file.
